#78 – David Kirkham: Turning MiG’s into Cobras Pt. 1

11 May #78 – David Kirkham: Turning MiG’s into Cobras Pt. 1

At StrengthCon Matt and Scott met with a number of fantastic guests, but perhaps none with so interesting a background as David Kirkham. At a young age, Mr. Kirkham taught himself to restore a 427 Shelby Cobra CSX3104, guided by a retired Rolls Royce employee who taught him a number of rare metalworking and mechanical skills.

Not long afterward, a relative bought, sold, and imported a Polish MiG fighter jet. The nose was dented badly in the shipping container, and David was asked if he could fix it. In the process, he realized that the construction of the jet was strikingly similar to the CSX3104, and the seeds of Kirkham Motorsports were born.

David contacted the factory in Poland that had made the plane, asking if they could help him make a car. They said yes, and a week later he was on a plane to Warsaw with an English-Polish dictionary, a toy model of a Cobra, and a dream.